Why and how to develop a growth mindset when it comes to your health

Recently I read the book Mindset by Carol S. Dweck and it really stuck with me.

The book is basically about two mindsets:

the growth mindset and the fixed mindset.

Who better to explain them than Carol herself:

In a fixed mindset students believe their basic abilities, their intelligence, their talents, are just fixed traits. They have a certain amount and that’s that, and then their goal becomes to look smart all the time and never look dumb. In a growth mindset students understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching and persistence. They don’t necessarily think everyone’s the same or anyone can be Einstein, but they believe everyone can get smarter if they work at it.

— Carol Dweck, Stanford University

I can recommend this book to anybody.

What has this to do with your health?

As the title already suggested developing a growth mindset will be beneficial for your health.

Let me explain.

There seems to be some thinking that health is only reserved for a few “lucky” people, with the right genes and the right environment when growing up.

I’ve heard it so many times:

“I can’t lose weight, because of my genes.”

“I was overweight as child, I can’t get to a normal weight now.”

“Not eating junk food is so hard.”

“I just can’t go to bed when I’m supposed to”

“I can’t exercising…”

etc., etc., etc.,

Well, that’s all BS. (I admit it, there might be some rare exceptions)

That’s your fixed mindset telling you:

”Look at you. You couldn’t stay slim/fit until now, you lack the ability to lose weight and you will never learn it”

Here’s the thing, BS as well. Don’t believe this

Every single one of you is able to get healthy, either by losing weight, eating quality food, exercising or sleeping enough.

Don’t let your fixed mindset tell you that you can’t do this.

Develop a growth mindset. Every single day think about what you can do to upgrade your health. Focus on the process not on the results.